'Survivor 46's Venus Vafa Responds to the "Character Assassination" from Her Cast

Venus Vafa

Survivor 46 is here! Every week, Parade.com's Mike Bloom will bring you interviews with the castaway most recently voted off of the island.

In Roman mythology, Venus, the goddess of beauty, was lovers with Mars, the god of war. And, true to her namesake, Venus Vafa brought a fighting spirit to her 21 days on Survivor 46. Personality conflict and a bad first impression put the Canadian on the border of her tribe from the jump, a gap which only widened as the days went on. At the merge, she eagerly jumped at the chance to betray her former Namis. However, by the end of her game, she had earned a reputation for being too chaotic and argumentative. And so Venus' shot at the million was sent out of orbit, blindsiding her with a newly-acquired idol in her pocket.

Before playing, Venus admitted to me that her upbringing caused her to initially put up walls and gave her a high threshold to trust. Unfortunately, those qualities manifested immediately on Nami. She felt she was being judged from preconceived notions and couldn't form an emotional bond or be heard by her tribe. As Nami continued its domination, Venus continued to feel more isolated, especially when her only ally Randen Montalvo was medevaced. So when she finally faced her first opportunity to vote at Mergatory, after 13 days of lying in wait, she was ready to pounce. Venus hit the ground running, trying to deviate from given plans in lieu of bigger moves. Unfortunately for her, a second chance at a first impression did not prove much better. Venus herself said at one point, "I love the mess. I live for the chaos." And she was truly showing that to her competition.

Though Nami stuck together initially, the cracks between them finally exploded when the jury hit. Venus and her once-ally Soda Thompson turned on each other, and she successfully drew the first orange blood of the game. She then followed that up by helping get rid of the two other members of Nami's core group, Tevin Davis and Hunter McKnight. Unfortunately, Venus' hot streak ended there, as she then found herself out of the know on the next vote. Luckily, due to home-field advantage, she gleefully found an idol. Though she chose not to tell anyone about her new acquisition, she did tease Charlie Davis that she had "something else going on." Her vague attitude confused and concerned Charlie, and served as a reminder of how tumultuous and anarchic Venus could be. At Tribal Council, Venus got vocal with Maria Shrime Gonzalez and Q Burdette over the former choosing the latter for reward. Feeling confident it was Q's time to go, she chose not to play her idol, hoping to save it down the line. Unfortunately, that opportunity would never come. For the third vote in a row, a person was led to believe that there would be an "easy vote" on Q, only to get shockingly taken out with an idol in tow.

Now out of the game, Venus talks with Parade.com about why she chose not to play her idol, why she was playing as if she was "gasping for air," and how her representation of the Iranian community contributed to her outspokenness

Related: Read our Survivor 46 pre-game interview with Tiffany Nicole Ervin

Hi, Venus! How are you doing right now?
I am feeling so at peace that I'm off that island with that bunch of crazies. So I'm feeling good, honestly. 

A little birdie told me that you were surrounded by a lot of support during your boot episode last night. So it must have been great to feel so loved by so many people as you get blindsided, especially considering some of the things you've seen said about you this season.
Oh, my goodness. Can I tell you it's such a sobering feeling. Because no one warns you how negative the Internet can be. And as much as there's love, the negativity just feels amplified when it's about you and you're reading it. So to be in a room with people who are showing nothing but love for me, it was very healing. So I really appreciated it. 

Well, unfortunately, we have to reopen old wounds and get into how you went out. You had just seen Tiffany mistakenly believe that it was an easy Q vote and get blindsided with an idol in her pocket. So what made you believe that, in the same situation, Q would actually go here and you could save your idol for later?
Honestly, I don't know if it was pride, more so than it was risk-taking behavior. I knew it was a 50/50 shot. Charlie was the swing vote, essentially. Either he goes with Q on one side or me on the other. And I love roulette. [Laughs.] I just like taking big risks. If this pays off, one of two things will happen. One, I get to use my idol at Final Six, or potentially win immunity and use that at Final Five, which is amazing. And two, it solidifies an alliance of some kind. Which, as you can see in the show, my story arc and my struggle was just finding anyone and anything to trust me and work with me. Because I really did come in wanting to play a game of "ride or dies" and loyalty. And I was trying a lot to form that with Charlie. Obviously, I wasn't successful, as we know. But that was my goal. Essentially, I'm like, "If this risk pays off, it has an amazing payoff. Because I get to get to solidify a connection with someone and I get to keep an idol." So that was my mentality. And I knew it was touch and go.

I want to stay on that Charlie note. You had thrown his name out at the first two individual votes. So talk to me about your dynamic, and how it built to this point of wanting to form a "ride or die" with him.
So in terms of the dynamic I was trying to build, after the Moriah vote, from then on out, I sat down with Charlie and I said, "Listen, this is the game of Survivor. It was no hard feelings. And I would really love to work with you." And that was the beginning of a conversation that we continue to have. He did a great job of making me feel safe and that he trusts me. So that speaks a lot to his game. That's amazing. But I really thought we had some kind of basis there that we could work off of. But I guess it's my delivery. I've come off, as I've come to learn, very sneaky, apparently very cagey, which I didn't know. In my mind, I'd be cheeky and cute. But it doesn't go that way. But I was trying to build that relationship with Charlie. And that was the moment to prove whether or not that amount of work was successful or not. And clearly, it wasn't.

So then how did that lead to that conversation where you don't tell Charlie you have the idol, but you indicate to him you have "something else going on," which seemingly makes him wary of you and leads to your boot?
So for that conversation, when I started it, I was immediately like, "Shut up! Abort, abort." But I had started the conversation with good intentions. I really did want to work with Charlie. I wanted to use the idol with him at the next vote, but I didn't want to allude to it too distinctly. And I wanted to give him a reason to keep me. And I guess this is where my misinterpretation came. I saw it as, "Ooh, this is an opportunity for the both of us! You get to use this, too. I want to work with you." He saw it as, "Oh [expletive]. Venus has something and that can screw over my game in the future." Which is fair, I see that point of view. Now, in the moment, I didn't really see that. So that conversation is really what killed my game. If I had not had that conversation with him, I would still be in the game for sure.

Well let's talk about that instance where you don't have that conversation. Let's say you do survive this vote. Who were you eyeing to go to the end with? And what did you think your chances of winning were, as contrasted with many in the fandom who thought you would be a zero-vote finalist?
Honestly, at that point, I thought, if I can get past that vote, I had a chance. I had a path to win. I wouldn't say it was the best chance, obviously, because jury management is really important in this game. But to have an idol, and to have been such an underdog. I was starting 20 feet before everyone else. I was very much at a disadvantage. So there was a path to winning for sure. I wouldn't say that I was completely doomed. But there's a reason I took such a big risk, because it would take a lot to convince people at the end and to deliver a convincing enough story. So yeah, I had some chance. As much as people like to say I would be a zero-vote finalist I think I would have gotten maybe one vote! [Laughs.]

You talk about starting 20 feet before everyone else. Let's go to the Survivor starting line. You and I spoke in the preseason about how you can admittedly put up walls initially and not give off a great first impression, and that seemed to manifest on Nami. Talk me through your emotional journey as you felt you weren't being heard by your tribe.
Oh my gosh, where to even begin. Let me just say, in the game of Survivor, I knew I was at a disadvantage from the beginning just because of how important first impressions are. But what I didn't expect from this cast specifically, was for first impressions and initial grudges to hold so strongly till the end. And what I want people to understand, and I don't know if it was portrayed enough, is how badly Tevin and later on Q poisoned the well against me. I feel like people who talk [expletive] about me have never been bullied in their life. Because there was no rhyme or reason for disliking me so heavily other than they didn't like my face, basically.

But imagine the two most charismatic, talkative people on the island saying nothing but negative things about you. Always having your name in their mouth, and always saying that you are chaos, you are sneaky, you are untrustworthy. Other people will internalize that, especially if they don't give you a chance to actually talk to you and get to know you as a person. They will internalize whatever the loudest voice in the room says to them. And that is something that I suffered with the entire game. It was very much the scarlet letter on me.

Tevin, being the light of the ball that he is, he really influenced a lot of people that I was not to be trusted. And you could see even Soda, someone who I adored and who I really connected with, even she stopped talking to me, even in a friend capacity outside of the game. Even she said, "Stop talking to me," because I was seen as such a pariah and a plague to everyone else's game. Which can I just say, in the game of Survivor, there is no reason to ostracize an individual person. And it's especially cruel on an island where you have no other support system and no one else to talk to. It's especially cruel to just flat-out ignore an individual's existence. And that was an extra psychological obstacle that I was dealing with that no one else had to deal with. I had no one that I could really speak to. So I feel like the game I was playing was very much shrunk, like gasping for air at all times. It felt like I was continuously being pushed down to be drowned in the water, in the Fijian seas, and I was just clawing my way to the surface.

What was your reaction to that perception you mentioned, of being described as chaotic and too messy of a player?
Can I just say something? You can even see it in this episode when Kenzie made a comment about how, "The only person who hasn't lied to me is Venus." I feel like that speaks to the character assassination that happened to me on the island that that was shocking to her. Because let me tell you something about the people I was with is. There was a lot of projection. And a lot of--let me say "egos"--that didn't enjoy having a mirror held up to their face. I am everything that they described about me. They were doing themselves, but they were doing it with the very false veil of a fake positivity. I was the only person who was doing what they were doing, but I was being open and honest about it.

We're all going to be sneaky. We're all going to be shady. We're all looking for an idol. Let's be real here. Let's have an open conversation about it. And they honestly didn't like how straightforward I was. I was. Honestly, I would have been the best person to have an alliance because I will always tell you what my opinion is, I will always tell you what I'm thinking, and I always be open minded to change. I never let any grudges stop me from working with someone at any point.

Before each person's vote out, Soda, Tevin, Hunter, way before that they were voted out. When I knew that they were the votes, when I knew it was their name, because as much as people don't believe it, I was a part of those conversations. But before each of their vote outs, I remember I approached each of them and I once again pled my case. Because in my mind, I would have loved to stay Nami strong. You don't have to like me as a person to work with me. And I tried so hard once again before each of their eliminations to try and gain some sense of trust and camaraderie. And they flat out just ignored me and did not want to speak to me. And I feel like it played a part in their own downfalls. So, karmic justice, you know?

You talk about speaking your mind. And we see that most recently at last night's Tribal Council, where you call Maria out on how she picked people for the reward. Did that openness come from the position you were in, or is that part of your personality?
Honestly, that conversation with Maria at Tribal, it felt like the last straw. Honestly, out of everyone else who has wronged me on the island, I was the most disappointed with Maria's behavior towards me, because I looked up to her a lot. I said this to her. I respected her a lot, to be a woman of color, and to be so strong. She is who I wanted to be--well, I wanted to be--when I was older. But I'm very much a girl's girl. This is no secret. "Woman, Life, Freedom" for a reason. I'm very much a type of person who wants to uplift other women. And for her to treat me so poorly.

She had approached me and said that there was no there is no universe where she would have ever worked with me, which is completely uncalled for. It's very heartbreaking. It's very heartbreaking. I feel like in that moment in Tribal, it was the last straw. I was so fed up with this fake persona she had put on for the cameras, when in reality, her behavior was very sinister. To me, it was very fake. Because all of the comments she had in her confessionals, were things that I was aware of, of myself. [Things] I had confronted her about, and I had apologized to her about at the very beginning. Before the Soda vote, I knew that she didn't trust me. And you didn't see this in the show. But I pulled her aside. And I said, "Listen, Maria. I'm a young person. I'm trying, I'm willing to learn. I want to be a better version. I want to be able to communicate well with you. I want you to trust me. Please, call me out on my [expletive]. Let me know if I'm saying anything that turns you off. I really want to work with you. I really want to talk with you."

And this was really Maria's biggest character flaw. She kept thinking that no one would want to come up to her or work with her or talk to her, the women specifically, when that's all I ever did. I would always come up to Maria and pitch a plan. Because she would ask me, "What's the plan? What's your idea?" She would never pitch a plan to me. But I was always trying to work with her. And so it was just really heartbreaking that she saw no universe where she could have worked with me.

Her behavior after that challenge was the most difficult thing to be put through. Because she made us stand out there for 10 minutes in the baking sun after that challenge to make her goddamn decision. I don't care who you take to pizza at this point! Just pick someone so I can go and sit on the damn boat and actually take a breath because I was exhausted. We were all exhausted. You could see Charlie and Kenzie dropped out too, because it had been such a long time of her trying to make a decision. And it was just so frustrating.

I'm gonna keep going. It's even more frustrating that she picked Q and Liz for the rock, paper, scissors. And you can see even her conversation later, she never said, "Oh, poor Venus" or anything. Everyone there saw me almost fall off the pier because I could barely walk in a straight line. That's how much weight I lost. That's how much I was struggling. And before that, it broke my heart that she said, "Plead your case." I'm not going to beg. You know what I'm struggling with? Q went to Applebee's. Liz has a full container of rice. She would share some of it with us, but obviously that was her rice. I had eaten nothing. So she didn't even consider me. But her whole farce was, "Oh, I want to pick someone who's really struggling, who's really suffering." Shut up, please! That's not what you want to do. Own up to your [expletive]. Like this is what bothers me is that everyone takes issue with the way I'm so direct. But at least I'm honest. Don't put on a fake air of positivity. I hate that [expletive]. I hate it so much. 

I want to bring things back to "Woman, Life, Freedom." You're one of only a couple of Persian contestants to play Survivor. And you drew attention to the situation in Iran, as well as your parents' immigration story. I know when we talked out there, you said you weren't playing to serve as the sole representative of all Persian and Iranian women. But I have to imagine you had received feedback and support from those communities throughout the season.
Oh, my goodness. Can I tell you it at the end of the episode when they showed my final words, and I was able to speak on that and say the words, "Woman, Life, Freedom," I broke into tears. And I'm about to cry right now. Because it means so much to me. It is absolutely heartbreaking what is happening in Iran right now, what those women have to go through. It's heartbreaking, especially because my entire family is there. And they're dealing with very dangerous circumstances. And a lot of people conflate the two. They think that my "loud mouth," as they put it, my openness to speak my mind, as cocky or arrogant.

But in reality, you know what it is? So much of my family, my friends, and my people back in Iran, they don't even have the right to speak openly. And here I am, I was gifted the privilege to speak my mind and to not receive any form of the severe punishment for it. So I went into this game saying, "Yes, I could play the safe game and be quiet. Or I can use my voice the way I want to, the way I'm advocating for other women to. Be that confident person that I see in Iran, the confident women there who are speaking their minds and putting their own lives at risk. This is such a tiny thing in comparison. Of course, I'm going to speak my mind. Of course, I'm gonna come off as arrogant. I don't care. But the last thing I'm going to do is censor myself, and to remove myself of my own agency in the game.

When Q said that I should have been grateful after the Moriah vote, that I should have been grateful it wasn't me, that is exactly the problem with society as a whole. And people forget this. Survivor is a social experiment. It's a microcosm of society. And the internal and subconscious biases that exists in us as individuals is amplified in this very tiny sphere, in this tiny community we've created. So to look at an outspoken woman and to think that she is being ungrateful speaks to exactly what the problem was on that island. I wasn't ungrateful. I was just trying to have a conversation. I was just trying to get my opinion across, and that was seen in such a negative light. And it's just it's heartbreaking to watch back, honestly. Sorry, back to the original point I was trying to make. This issue is very important. And I'm glad, no matter what game I played, that I was able to just be a part of the conversation and to increase representation. And I hope to see so many more Iranian players in the future.

Next, check out our interview with Tiffany Nicole Ervin, who was voted out in Survivor 46 Episode 10.